Student leaders and key members of the administration sat down for a lunch together to address shared governance issues Sept. 26.
Members of the Undergraduate Students Association Council joined Chancellor Gene Block, Vice Provost Judith Smith and UCLA College Dean Patricia O’Brien, as well as other administrators.
The idea of shared governance, or giving students a voice in campus issues, is one that USAC has chosen to work on this year.
It is specifically attempting to get more student voice on faculty and administrative committees, ideally including a voting student member on as many as possible.
USAC President Gabe Rose said administrators have been very receptive to the idea of more student input, but one of the major problems is that they don’t know how to reach out and find the students who want to be involved.
USAC leaders also gave feedback on student concerns about academics during the lunch.
Some student representatives brought up the possibility of creating a business minor that they have been working on.
While the curriculum of the UCLA College has previously been more liberal arts-based, there has been increasing demand among students for more professionally oriented programs such as an undergraduate business minor.
Academic Affairs Commissioner Addar Weintraub said her commission has been working on a proposal for the new minor, and she was pleased with how the idea was received by administrators, particularly the chancellor.
Rose, who supports the business minor, said the university’s academics should be neither completely liberal arts-based nor completely professionally based but should be a mixture of both.
Rose said Block seemed open to reevaluating the types of academic programs that UCLA offers, and O’Brien has also said that she supports the effort as well.